Codifying Convergence: Synchronizing Non-Lethal Effects and Non-Kinetic Activities for Operational Control Over Adversary Decision-Making
Introduction
Commanders are putting soldiers at unnecessary risk, not because they lack firepower, but because they fail to synchronize the effects of information forces with ground maneuver. In today’s multidomain battlespace, failing to integrate information effects can fracture adversary cohesion, delay enemy movements, or erode public support. Modern battlefields are increasingly shaped by information – its use, misuse, and contestation – across all domains. U.S. Army formations, long valued for mobility, firepower, and shock effect, now operate amid pervasive informational, physical, and human dimensions, networks, ubiquitous sensors, and global media. To prevail, maneuver forces must be enhanced by integrating Non-Lethal Effects (NLE) and Non-Kinetic Activities (NKA) into operations. Such integration seeks to “bake in” information advantage rather than sprinkle it on top.
Converging NLE/NKA with maneuver operations creates synergistic effects across domains, allowing commanders to exploit adversary vulnerabilities and establish Information Advantage (IA) at decisive points in time and space. By influencing how adversaries think, decide, and act at every echelon, we can mitigate or deter aggression before it escalates into full-scale war. This requires strategic leaders and operational planners to adopt new doctrines, advanced technologies (such as AI/ML), and innovative targeting processes, including Non-Lethal Critical Vulnerability Analysis (NLCVA), that converge effects across domains. The following analysis combines an accessible strategic narrative with in-depth technical details on integration, providing actionable recommendations for Army leaders to institutionalize these concepts through doctrine, training, and planning.
The Evolving Operational Landscape
The future is now, conflicts are unfolding across all domains—land, air, sea, space, cyber, and the electromagnetic spectrum—as outlined in the U.S. Army’s Multi-Domain Operations (MDO) concept. Adversaries like Russia and China already weaponize information through cyberattacks and influence operations to achieve strategic effects below the threshold of war. In April 2024, Israel’s precision strike on Iran marked a turning point in MDO, as Israeli forces synchronized cyber effects, electronic warfare, and psychological operations to disable Iranian anti-access/area denial (A2AD) and paralyze command and control systems, paving the way for airstrikes with minimal resistance.
These NLE and NKA were converged to generate physical outcomes, collapse decision cycles, and achieve surprise. This approach shaped the conditions for Operation Rising Lion in June 2025, which combined kinetic strikes by over 200 aircraft and was accompanied by cyber operations targeting Iran’s financial and communications systems. Israel again achieved information dominance by disrupting perception, deceiving its leadership, and degrading command and control coherence.
U.S. Army doctrine reflects this evolution. ADP 3-13: Information (2023) defines Information Advantage as “a condition when a force holds the initiative in terms of situational understanding, decision making, and relevant actor behavior.” To maintain decision superiority, U.S. forces must integrate NLE/NKA into operational planning—protecting friendly information, projecting influence, and contesting the information domain alongside traditional maneuver—to act faster and force the adversary to react.
Selecting and Applying NLE/NKA Capabilities: A Doctrinal Approach
Effective integration of NLE and NKA begins with identifying an adversary’s center of gravity (COG) through an analysis of critical capabilities, requirements, and vulnerabilities, as outlined in ADP 5-0. This foundational step informs Target Systems Analysis (TSA), which maps systemic dependencies—including Non-Kinetic Vulnerability Characteristics (NKVC), such as leadership cohesion or reliance on unsecured electromagnetic command channels—using Non-Lethal Critical Vulnerability Analysis (NLCVA) to uncover exploitable weaknesses. For instance, if maintaining legitimacy is a COG, NLCVA might reveal vulnerability to information operations that disrupt messaging coherence, providing a non-kinetic avenue for strategic disruption.
Once NKVCs are identified, planners must match available NLE/NKA capabilities using a “menu of options” approach recommended in JP 3-0. This includes cyber operations, Military Information Support Operations (MISO), civil affairs, and electronic warfare—all evaluated against the desired effect, feasibility, and specificity. Planners must define measurable outcomes, such as reduced recruitment or increased dissent, to ensure the effectiveness of their efforts.
Synchronizing all capabilities—whether lethal or non-lethal—through standard targeting boards, execution matrices, and decision support templates is the only way to achieve true multi-domain convergence.
Critically, Army planning doctrine warns against assuming low risk. ADP 5-0 stresses analyzing second- and third-order effects, recognizing that poorly targeted NLE/NKA may escalate conflict or reduce local support. Legal and ethical constraints under the Law of Armed Conflict and national policies require that all actions remain compliant with the law. Moreover, mission command demands decentralized execution within those boundaries. Ultimately, integrating NLE/NKA with kinetic operations in MDO campaigns maximizes synergy and achieves unified operational effects.
This underscores why traditional Air Tasking Order (ATO) structures are ill-suited for synchronizing non-lethal and non-kinetic activities. The ATO was developed to sequence air-delivered fires on predictable 72-hour cycles, optimized for kinetic operations. It struggles to accommodate the flexible delivery, approval chains, and tempo required by many NLE/NKA effects. Consequently, information forces have often been treated as secondary, scheduled around kinetic priorities rather than being fully synchronized with maneuver from the outset.
Recognizing this, the Joint Force has replaced the ATO with the Integrated Tasking Order (ITO), designed to integrate effects across all domains under a unified construct. This evolution compels the Army to modernize its targeting processes. While D3A (Decide, Detect, Deliver, Assess) remains foundational for ground targeting, it must now incorporate NLE/NKA as primary operational effects. As one fires battalion commander succinctly put it: “An effect is an effect is an effect—no matter how it’s delivered.” Synchronizing all capabilities—whether lethal or non-lethal—through standard targeting boards, execution matrices, and decision support templates is the only way to achieve true multi-domain convergence and maintain operational control over the adversary’s decision-making.
A Method for Designing Convergence: A Five-Step Approach to Planning and Synchronizing NLE/NKA Effects
In today’s Multi-Domain Operations (MDO), achieving overmatch requires more than physical force—it demands cognitive and informational dominance. This imperative is encapsulated in the Army’s concept of Information Advantage (IA), which asserts that commanders must possess a superior understanding, faster decision-making, and greater influence over the behavior of relevant actors across the competition continuum. Central to achieving IA is the deliberate integration of NLE and NKA into campaign and operational plans.
The following five-step planning framework enables operational planners to move beyond ad hoc inclusion of information-related capabilities. Instead, it offers a doctrinally informed, synchronized approach to operationalizing NLE/NKA as force multipliers alongside fires and maneuver.
At the heart of this approach is the convergence window model, which serves as a planning tool to sequence multiple NLE/NKA effects alongside maneuver and fires. It helps staff visualize lead times, duration, and residual impacts to achieve multi-domain convergence. However, this model is not a rigid template—it is a guide. Commanders must apply judgment and creativity to adapt these concepts to the specific operational environment, recognizing that no diagram alone can guarantee convergence.
Step 1: Build the Menu of Options
NLE/NKA planning begins with building a tailored menu of available capabilities. These include cyberspace operations, electromagnetic warfare, psychological operations (PSYOP), space-based effects, deception, operational security (OPSEC), civil affairs, and public affairs. This inventory should be based on the unit’s echelon, authorities, and current theater posture.
Each capability must be mapped according to its delivery method (such as platform, range, or medium), effect type (including influence, deny, degrade, or deceive), and the approval process and timeline required, whether at the tactical, operational, or national level. This structured menu enables planners to visualize which information forces are available and how they align with mission objectives.
Figure 1. Menu of Non-Lethal Effects/Non-Kinetic Activities (NLE/NKA) Options. This capability and effects matrix serves as a visual planning tool for staff officers and commanders to identify and synchronize the appropriate NLE/NKA assets to support desired end states. Adapted from an original product by LTC Felix F. Figueroa, Director, Joint Information Planners Course, Joint Forces Staff College, National Defense University (2024).
Step 2: Match Effects to Targets
Once the capability menu is established, the next step is to conduct target-to-effect matching. Identifying exploitable NKVCs through TSA and NLCVA methodology enables planners to pinpoint critical nodes in the adversary’s system-of-systems, particularly those in the cognitive and informational.
Each effect must be mapped to the adversary’s key functions or decision-making processes, the specific domains it influences—whether physical, informational, or human—and its time sensitivity and sequencing requirements. NLE/NKA effects are rarely immediate and often require buildup or repeated exposure. This reinforces the importance of deliberate planning during the Military Decision-Making Process (MDMP) and joint targeting cycles.
Figure 2. Staff planners provide recommendations (yellow boxes) and a commander adds additional capability requirements (red boxes) to match effects to targets.
Step 3: Designing the Convergence Window
A convergence window is a deliberately planned point in time and space in which multiple effects—spanning lethal, non-lethal, and non-kinetic domains—are synchronized to generate maximum operational impact. Within MDO, this synchronization is critical for achieving operational control over adversary decision-making by overwhelming the adversary’s capacity to perceive, orient, and respond. Non-lethal effects and non-kinetic activities (NLE/NKA) must not be executed in isolation or added late in planning cycles; instead, they must be fully integrated with maneuver schemes, deception plans, and shaping operations to ensure complementary and reinforcing effects across the competition continuum. This level of integration demands both foresight and precision, especially since many NLE/NKA tools require extended preparation and authorization timelines.
Commanders and staffs must also distinguish between cascading effects, which trigger secondary impacts across domains or echelons (often in unpredictable ways), and compounding effects, where repeated or layered actions build exponentially, much like the snowballing impact of compound interest. Visualizing these dynamics within the convergence design helps avoid timing misalignments and ensures effects are synchronized to influence the adversary precisely when maneuver forces need it most. A well-orchestrated sequence of NLE/NKA can not only force the adversary to react but also create dilemmas that multiply over time, steadily eroding cohesion and initiative.
Figure 3 illustrates how layering NLE and NKA over time creates a cumulative, compounding impact on the adversary, similar to the accelerating growth of compound interest or a snowball gathering mass. Each integrated effect increases cognitive and operational pressure, depicted by the growing snowballs, ultimately forcing adversary decisions within a constrained window. This synchronization ensures that by the time maneuver forces engage, the adversary’s cohesion and ability to respond have already been substantially degraded. Legend: Yellow Box is the NLE/NKA effects convergence window. Green Box is the maneuver forces convergence window.
Effective convergence design depends on several key planning variables. First is lead time—how far in advance an effect must be initiated to achieve desired outcomes. For example, psychological operations aimed at shifting audience sentiment require a longer runway than an electronic warfare action designed to suppress enemy radar. Second is duration—how long the effect must be sustained to influence adversary behavior or systems. Finally, sequencing is essential to determine what supporting actions must occur before, during, or after effect delivery to optimize impact. Together, these elements define not only when and how an effect should be employed, but also the dependencies that govern its tactical and strategic value. Planners must account for these factors early in the Military Decision-Making Process (MDMP) or joint planning cycle to ensure NLE/NKA effects are synchronized with tempo, intent, and objectives.
Figure 4. Visual planning model illustrating phased synchronization of NLE/NKA effects and maneuver convergence windows in multi-domain operations.
Figure 4 illustrates a comprehensive model for orchestrating non-kinetic and maneuver effects. The timeline begins with the Commander’s Decision Point (CDR DP) to initiate NLE/NKA development and extends through sequencing phases that include capability build, testing, positioning, and employment. It delineates six primary planning windows: the NLE/NKA Effect Development Sequence (blue), the Effect Firing Window (yellow), the Effect Time of Flight (orange), the Effect Impact Window (red), the Maneuver Convergence Window (green), and the Lasting Impact Window (dark green). The Lasting Impact Window highlights how some effects continue shaping the battlespace well beyond their initial application, influencing adversary decision-making cycles long after the initial application has occurred.
This window forces planners to look beyond momentary disruption and consider how non-lethal effects can create a persistent operational advantage. To see this in action, refer to Figures 5 and 6, where you can observe the Lasting Impact dotted lines and the orange boxes indicating the estimated effect and conclusion. Specific decision points, resource dependencies, and synchronization requirements define each phase. This visual framework supports operation-specific and targeted products, enabling commanders and staff to align informational and physical effects in a unified scheme of action. Such planning rigor ensures that NLE/NKA are not only integrated doctrinally but operationalized to achieve true cross-domain convergence.
Step 3a: Integrated Effects Timing: Orchestrating NLE/NKA to Enable Operational Control over Adversary Decision-making
Figure 5. Timeline visualization of multiple NLE/NKA effects synchronized across domains to arrive within the planned convergence window, enabling information advantage conditions in support of maneuver.
The deliberate synchronization of multiple non-lethal effects (NLE) and non-kinetic activities (NKA) across diverse domains into a unified convergence window. Each effect, represented along separate planning timelines, requires varying levels of development, posture, and infiltration time. By mapping each capability against a shared zero-hour, planners ensure these effects culminate in the designated convergence window when the commander requires them to shape the battlefield.
This synchronization enables conditions for Information Advantage by degrading, denying, or influencing the adversary’s decision-making processes in time to enable the maneuver element’s success. Figure 5 illustrates how to sequence NLE/NKA efforts, layered in time and domain, to generate cumulative and reinforcing effects that expand the commander’s decision space and set favorable conditions for operational dominance.
Step 4: Synchronize with Maneuver and Fires
In MDO, NLE and NKA must be deliberately synchronized with maneuver and fires to generate complementary and reinforcing effects across domains. They cannot exist as parallel or isolated lines of effort; they must be integrated into the overall scheme of maneuver. Just as fires are plotted on doctrinal overlays, such as the Fire Support Overlay, planners must similarly develop NLE/NKA overlays that depict timing, delivery platforms, intended effects, and the supported maneuver objectives. This integration enables commanders to visualize how information-related capabilities impact tempo, deception, and operational reach across the physical, informational, and cognitive dimensions.
Figure 6. Synchronization of NLE/NKA effects with maneuver and fires, aligned to the convergence window. Organizations time and layer effects to enable tactical breakthroughs, support deception, and set conditions for operational success.
Synchronization enables tactical formations to use NKA to suppress, isolate, or disorient enemy forces in advance of direct action. For example, cyber or electronic warfare (EW) effects may disrupt enemy intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities before a combined arms breach. At the same time, PSYOP messages and narrative shaping may delay enemy reserve mobilization or fracture unit cohesion at the decisive point. Operational-level deception efforts—including feints, decoys, and information camouflage—can mask the timing and location of the main effort, enabling maneuver to retain the initiative. When these effects are timed precisely within a convergence window, they collectively expand the commander’s decision space while constraining the adversary’s.
The graphic in Figure 6 visualizes this principle by layering synchronized NLE/NKA effects with the maneuver convergence window. Plotted over time, each effect builds, postures, and culminates precisely when needed to enable tactical breakthrough. Visual coordination tools, such as the Combined Information Overlay (CIO), can further enhance this process, allowing planners to represent cyberspace, electromagnetic influence, and deception effects alongside fire and movement graphics. Together, this methodology provides the cognitive and spatial structure necessary for commanders to integrate all warfighting functions, enabling them to achieve Information Advantage and mission success. Staff must visualize not just immediate impacts but how effects compound—layering to overwhelm decision cycles—or cascade, triggering secondary and tertiary consequences beyond the initial plan.
Step 5: Codify in Plans and Authorities
Finally, selected NLE/NKA effects must be codified in Army Service Component Command (ASCC) Operational Plans (OPLANs) and Contingency Plans (CONPLANs), as well as in Corps and Division-level supporting plans tied to those higher OPLANs and CONPLANs. This codification must be updated in all supporting documents, including operations, fires, and information operations (IO) annexes, information forces overlays, the menu of available NLE/NKA options, and target synchronization products such as the Joint Integrated Prioritized Target List (JIPTL). This formal integration ensures effects are not only conceptual but properly resourced, tasked, and positioned within approval chains. Legal and policy reviews, along with mission command requirements, demand that decision points be aligned with effect delivery so commanders can adjust in stride.
Only through this deliberate alignment can maneuver formations execute NLE/NKA with the same rigor, confidence, and predictability as traditional fires.
Codification also addresses the practical reality that many NLE/NKA capabilities require lengthy development timelines or even national-level authorization. By embedding these effects early within OPORDs and annexes, staffs ensure they are fully vetted, approved, and executable when needed, avoiding last-minute delays that could fracture the carefully designed convergence window.
U.S. Army operations plans nest within higher-level strategic guidance, flowing from national strategies through global campaign plans and combatant command directives, down to ASCCs. This nesting underscores the need for NLE/NKA effects to be codified across all echelons to remain synchronized with overarching operational objectives and authorities. Only through this deliberate alignment can maneuver formations execute NLE/NKA with the same rigor, confidence, and predictability as traditional fires. Without this level of formal integration into the joint planning process, information-related effects risk being delayed or overlooked entirely due to complex approval requirements or unclear execution authorities, undermining their intended impact on the operational scheme.
Integration into Joint and Army targeting cycles is also essential, particularly for effects requiring interagency coordination or national-level approval, such as cyber operations, influence activities, or deception plans. Planners must ensure every effect appears in the appropriate fragmentary order (FRAGORD), fire support execution matrix (FSEM), or information overlay to support visualization and execution. Codification represents the final step in the synchronization process, as it transitions concepts into action, authorizing the deliberate employment of information forces alongside maneuver and fire.
Conclusion
The evolving character of warfare demands a planning framework that is anticipatory, integrated, and information-centric. Synchronizing Non-Lethal Effects and Non-Kinetic Activities within Multi-Domain Operations is not merely a doctrinal adjustment; it is a strategic imperative. These capabilities provide scalable, reversible options that enable commanders to operate decisively across the competition continuum. As threats grow more hybrid and cognitive, Army planners must lead the Joint Force in codifying and operationalizing these tools, embedding them from concept to execution. Codifying and synchronizing NLE and NKA ensures the Army can dominate the information environment, preserve freedom of maneuver, and win in multi-domain competition and conflict.
